This book has been five years in the making. It is about all the gardens I visited in Japan from 2007 to 2013. It contains most of the photos I took in the gardens along with maps and other ephemera. I probably finished the text block in 2014 or 2015. Since then it’s been wrapped in plastic and sitting on a table in my workroom waiting for covers.
My first bad decision was making the word GARDEN in French knots. Sometimes I enjoy embroidery; too often it’s tedious and boring. So the fabric, thread and boards have also been sitting on that table for the last five years.
The book is huge. Two hundred sheets of paper 8.5 x 14 inches plus about 50 additional folded pages for the maps and stuff. Altogether it is more than two inches thick bound with three brass screw posts (Chicago posts). My second bad decision was to pad the covers using quilt batting. It only added a few millimeters of thickness but made it much harder to cut the holes for binding. I had to drill three 1/4 inch holes through the text and covers. I have a Dremel tool but it won’t hold the 1/4 inch bit. I improvised using a hole punch. It was an awful job.
This is book number 90.
My pages were single sheet so I created a small book block with fourteen folded signatures then glued each of the sheets to the inside of each side of the signature. I made tapes out of book cloth to affix the covers and sewed each of the signatures around the tapes. I did not use good thread and probably not very good glue. Here you can see the glued on maple seeds, many of which have fallen off, and how the book is coming apart. Someday I may rebind it.
Maple seeds are printed on this page, probably before I wrote the text. On the left is an accordion-fold pull out with many of the pictures I couldn’t fit into the regular pages. Paper for the signatures was created in the workshop using some kind of rust mixture. Sandy was very big on rust at that time.
This book, a kind of tribute to my mother who had recently died, was the only other book made in the printing/copy shop. Designed and printed in 1994, it is 4″ x 5″, 26 single sheets bound with a machine we had in the shop, and an edition of 400 copies. I included a portrait of my mother as a young woman, her wedding picture (top), her parents at the wedding of her oldest brother (below) and a picture of my grandmother and her three sisters when they arrived in the US. The story is about our search for a special apple kugel recipe Mama kept experimenting with and we thought was lost, some historical material about that particular kind of kugel also known as a shalet and a few really good recipes. I gave the books to my customers as a Christmas present and I’m still giving them away to friends and relatives.
In 1990 Richard and I bought a printing/copy franchise. The business seemed to consume my life, but it also gave me some opportunities: first to learn to use the computer; then to make a book. This book, titled Alas Art Aches Awesomely, was made entirely on the computer or a copier. I don’t remember all of the details of its creation or the number of copies I finished. Possibly I made the entire book on the computer and printer using only the shop cutter and stapler for binding. It has a transparent cover, text weight paper, folded, and is bound with a single staple. Size is approximately 4″x 3½”. I used CorelDraw, the only program I knew at that time.
Recently (2016), I decided to redo the book. I now use a more powerful computer, a much more sophisticated program, Adobe Indesign, an archival printer and carefully selected papers. Much of the original book is a kind of plaintive rant. I modified the new book to reflect my more relaxed attitude.
This book has proven very popular with friends. I made five copies and gave away two of them. The one above was the first one I made. The translucent paper I used doesn’t show up well in the photo; it’s really beautiful. Unfortunately I don’t know where to get more. This copy is a tabbed accordion, 4″ x 5″, printed on Talas unbuffered bond with Epson Claria inks.
My last attempt is 5″ x 8″, single sheet stab binding. I like the way it looks but the book doesn’t open easily.
Using a single sheet format limits options for binding. Folded signatures provide many more choices. I have been struggling with this since I began seriously making books.
100 Books Before I Die 